IT Insights: 6 Benefits of the CIO Dashboard

As the size and scope of networks increase, Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) software for mid-market businesses has evolved to deliver actionable intelligence through dashboards. These dashboards act as a powerful resource to provide enterprise-level value to even organizations of all sizes. The technology has evolved to the point that small to medium sized businesses  can  manage their entire infrastructure, including mobile devices, desktops, storage and cloud performance , servers and networks. This dashboard and analytics technology enables CIOs and other executives to gain greater insight into their IT infrastructure and how it’s performing. Here are some of the top benefits CIO dashboards provide.

1. Anyone (Even Non-Technical Audiences) Can Understand Them

CIOs understand the challenge of communicating important technical information to a wide range of audiences and helping to bridge the knowledge gap into operational priorities.  For example, explaining the importance of  load balancing becomes much easier when using a visual representation of system data. Another example is  forecasting capital expenditures; visual dashboards help bridge CIO, CTO and CFO understanding  of expenditures impacting cash flow and other investments  which results in better decision-making.

2. Dashboards Offer Real Time Updates 

Rather than manually running reports (which can be time consuming and lead to human errors), dashboards deliver accurate up-to-the-minute updates. This enables companies to be more proactive rather than reactive, resolving problems before they cause expensive downtime. The business collaboration and communications solutions company, Avaya, reports downtime costs businesses between $140,000 and $540,000 per hour. Even if a company’s downtime cost is not as high, every minute systems are down is expensive and can cause damage to your brand.

Through delivering real-time updates, dashboards enable CIOs to know exactly when a system outage occurs as well as alerting them to conditions that could cause downtime in the future.   .  This enables faster responses to problems,  significant cost reductions and important risk mitigation for downtime.

3. Improved Network Health Ensures Better Customer Service

Delivering high quality customer service around the clock is essential for any business today. IT systems act as the backbone for delivering great customer service for most businesses. Given the mobile workforce and 24 X 7 nature of the business,     network performance and security  should be one of the top priorities for executives. Once presented visually through  the CIO   dashboard, teams  can quickly identify, diagnose and take action to resolve network issues.

Dashboards also expose inefficient processes and missing data within an organization. When action is taken to close the identified data gaps and improve inefficiencies, network health improves, critical services become more reliable, and the ability to serve customers increases significantly. The end result is better profitability for the company.

4. Improved Remote Monitoring and Management

CIOs tasked with monitoring large networks or a high number of end-user devices gain a big advantage using CIO Dashboards. RMM solutions deliver better flexibility, scalability and visibility into IT services.

This allows IT managers to easily manage entire infrastructures, including mobile devices, desktops, networks and storage, cloud/SaaS environments, and servers.

When combined with a dashboard that integrates RMM solutions, performing RMM tasks—such as detecting potential problems and deploying fixes—becomes even easier. RMM also allows CIOs to stay on top of software licensing, making it easy to see those that are valid and those that need imminent renewal.

By delivering better RMM, CIO dashboards also allow CIOs to better manage their resources. This helps CIOs who may be stretched thin to accomplish more and have a better grasp of what’s going on in business IT. It also helps companies achieve more without a big, enterprise-level budget.

5. Bridging the Gap Between Small and Large Businesses

The greatest benefit for SMBs using CIO dashboards is that they enable smaller companies to compete with much larger businesses. Tapping into the wealth of data provided by information dashboards delivers enterprise-level actionable decision-making and enhanced insights. As big data becomes more important in the coming years, SMBs who adopt tools like the CIO dashboard early will see great advantages over the competition.

The IBM Institute for Business found that 26 percent of companies see returns from big data after 6 months, 63 percent see returns after one year and 40 percent reported that they use big data to solve their operational challenges.

6. Cusomization for Reporting that Fits Your Business Needs

Due to their customizability, the best CIO dashboard solutions deliver increased productivity. They can be configured to fit a business’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals, delivering actionable insights into the state of a business. This allows for greater optimization at a much faster pace. For example, CIOs could easily glance at a dashboard and view important KPIs such as:

• Network availability and reliability
• Cost benchmarks and trends
• Help desk metrics
• User satisfaction
• Information quality metrics

Each business has different needs and goals. By tailoring a dashboard to meet those specific needs, businesses enhance their decision-making and make expenses more predictable. A lean, efficient IT organization is a goal shared by most businesses. By deploying customized, real-time CIO dashboards with RMM integration, businesses of all sizes—but especially small businesses—can experience measurably increased productivity, insights and results.

References

1. Network Downtime Results in Job, Revenue Loss 
2. Enterprise Dashboards: The Strategic Role of the CIO
3. IBM Institute for Business Value - Analytics: The real-world use of big data
4. CGS Launches Remote Monitoring and Maintenance Dashboard for SMBs
5. Enhance Performance with Remote Monitoring & Maintenance (RMM) Webinar